Introduction - Computer Busses - page 16

nies. Their focus, from now on, would be the PC-processor market. If they could always
keep one step ahead of the cloners they would have a virtual monopoly. Eventually they
would become so powerful as a market leader that they would overcome the basic rule that
you always need a second source of processors for new processors to be accepted in the mar-
ket. IBM had developed a system that would end up reducing their market share, and create a
quasi-monopoly at the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the millennium for Intel (with
processors and support devices) and Microsoft (for operating systems, and eventually appli-
cation software). IBM would eventually fail in its introduction of new industry standards,
such as MXA bus technology, whereas Intel would gain acceptance of new standards, such
as the PCI bus, and Microsoft would develop new standard in operating systems, such as
Windows NT.
At the same time as Intel was developing the 8086 they were developing the 8800 proc-
essor, which would not be compatible with the 8080, and would be a great technological
break-though (as it would not have to be compatible with the older 8080 device). When the
8800 was finally released in 1981 as the iAPX432 (Intel Advanced Processor Architecture),
it reached the market just as the IBM PC took off, and died a quick death, as everyone
wanted the lower-powered 8086 device. The iAPX lives on as the 'x86' architecture.
Apple was growing fast in 1978 and released a BASIC version of VisiCalc spreadsheet.
They also produced their first Apple II disk drive and Disk II, which was a 5.25-inch floppy
disk drive linked to the computer by a cable ($495). At the end of 1978, Apple Computer
began work on an enhanced Apple II with custom chips, code-named Annie, a supercom-
puter with a bit-sliced architecture, code-named Lisa, and also on Sara (the Apple III). Atari
released the Atari 400 and 800 personal computers, which used the 6502 processor. Micro-
soft was quick to spot the potential of the 8086 processor and developed Microsoft COBOL
and Microsoft BASIC for it.
Computer systems also started to find their way into social pursuits when Atari developed
the Asteroids computer game and Taito developed the Space Invaders arcade game. They
were classics of their time, but hardly powerful by today's bit-mapped, 3D graphics.
Epson, who had had a successful market in typewriters, started to produce low-price,
high-performance dot matrix printers (the MX-80), and at the same time, Commodore re-
leased the CBM 2020 dot-matrix printer (as well as a dual 5.25-inch floppy disk drive unit).
In 1979, Xerox finally lost its foothold on the computer industry when the Alto was ad-
vertised on TV, but then the president decides to drop its development. Microsoft, on the
other hand, was going from strength to strength. Microsoft 8080 BASIC eventually broke the
one million-dollar barrier, the first microprocessor product to do this. Soon, Microsoft had
developed BASIC, and FORTRAN for the 8086. They had also released Assembler language
system for 8080/Z80 microprocessors.
Apple Computer released DOS 3.2, and the Apple II Plus computer, which had a 48 KB
memory, and cost $1195. They also highlighted their growing strength by introduces their
first printer, the Apple Silentype ($600). At PARC, Xerox was the leader in developing a
graphical user interface with their Alto computer. As a learning process, a group of engineers
and executives from Apple were given a demonstration of the Alton, and its associated soft-
ware, in exchange for Xerox spending $1 million buying 100 000 Apple Computer shares.
The investment would pay off many times over for Apple as it helped in their development
of the Apple Mac computer.
1979 produced mixed fortunes for two of Intel's competitors: Zilog and Motorola. It was
a bad year for Zilog when it distributed its new 16-bit processor, the Z8000. It main draw-
back was its incompatibility with its 8-bit predecessor, the classic Z80. For Motorola, it was
one of success as they released the excellent 68000, 16-bit microprocessor. It used 68 000